Spider-Man/Wolverine #4

Background

An unmasked Peter Parker is being questioned extensively by an unkown agency along with a beaten and bruised Wolverine. The line of questioning seeks to uncover the events of the last thirty-six hours. Sounds familiar? It's how the issues 2 and 3 started as well and I see no reason to change it...

Story Details

Peter and Logan tell about what happened in Switzerland after they were captured by Nick Fury. Nick tells a sad story. Logan doesn't like it and fails to see the point. Nick then cuts Logan and asks why Logan isn't healing. Turns out, a secret SHIELD project called Stuff Of Legends created a formula that would stop people with super powers. Logan got injected with the formula and won't heal for another 24 hours.

Doctor Brecker, the mastermind behind the project, has gone rogue. After a lot of blah blah, Logan and Peter go in, for Nick can't due to law restrictions. Brecker is watching them on the monitors of his security system.

Wolverine goes to the entrance of the base. Guards are waiting for him. He runs away, luring the guards away. Spider-Man sneaks inside. He enters the room in which Dr. Brecker is conducting experiments. The doctor laughs as Spider-Man bends over, having bad pains in his stomach. There is gas in the room, which will liquify Spider-Man's guts. But then "snikkt" is heard and the doctor falls down, being cut by Wolverine.

Since the nerve gas is made for Spider-Man, Wolverine would not be affected by it. This they knew from Nick, and so they changed costumes. Spider-Man wearing Wolverine's costume then enters the room. Asking whether Logan killed the doctor. The answer is no, he'll live. A big boom and Nick Fury arrives. Finally orders came through and he could enter the base. They leave together and the base is blown to pieces.

Back to the interrogation. The shadowy figure turns out to be Aunt May. Peter and Logan are sitting at the kitchen table. Time's up, for any longer and the roast would have been burned. They ask Logan to stay for dinner. He hesitates, but then ends the story with "I'll carve".

General Comments

At last, this series has come to an end. The first 3 issues were a stretch but this one has definitely gone over the edge. Since when does Nick Fury have to follow international law? Oh I forgot, if he didn't there wouldn't be story here. Silly me.

Anyway, the previous three issues did not have enough action to my liking, just a lot of words to describe the action. This one has a lot of explaining and guess what? Even more words. Since it's the final issue of the series, I guess they really did have to throw in a little more action scenes. And so they did. But in fact, all we get is a very unbalanced issue. First, a lot of explaining and then some action scenes. Why not mix the two? Because I feel that by doing it this way, all the suspense is lost, you just know it'll end with a bang. And so it did, but it was only a very small panel.

Finally, Aunt May. Major, major let down. Was this supposed to be funny? Totally out of character. Remember how the story started, "...being questioned extensively by an unknown agency..."? Yeah, right, an unknown agency. No, this is not how Peter, Logan and Aunt May should be treated in the regular Marvel Universe.

Overall Rating

Perhaps you thought I was harsh on the previous issue, which got 2 webs, well, think again. I was going to give this one 3 webs, for the story was average and the artwork looked rushed. But then I saw Aunt May again, and decided to deduct 1 web for using her like this in the story. And on top of that, I deduct 1 web for the way she's drawn. This is not Aunt May, at least, not in my opinion.

If you want a realy cool Spider-Man / Wolverine story, please, do pick up Ultimate X-Men issues 34 and up. That's the way to do it. In fact, I think I'll read that series again right now, just so I will forget about this mini-series sooner.